Internal Release is still worth getting and was honestly overpowered anyway (20% crit buff) when considering its cross class. I have mixed feelings about Blood for Blood because of how it can get you raped if you're not careful. 10% boost to damage is kind of meh for the risk, but like anything else the stuff is situational. The MNK buffs however are INSANE, Greased Lightening III is upwards of 27% damage boost on top of the attack speed. Don't even get me started on some of the overall damage boosts to abilities. MNK wasn't as popular as some of the other jobs, but these buffs will bring them pretty bring them toe-to-toe with BLM and quite possibly surpass them with less gear waggling. I see them becoming the defacto melee class now, which is a shame. Now we'll have a ton of mediocre MNKs running around. They were excellent damage to begin with but people just didn't know how to play them, now it's no contest.

a good monk was already A top dps slot. Its just that you rarely see a great monk. Now its the undisputed 1# single target spot.edit: heads up guys, the patch is up for download on the client now. Its quite meaty at 3gigs

Yeah, seems it wouldn't hurt for me to get IR, nerf or not. Thanks guys.

I have bloodbath, but not second wind. I'm not sure fracture is even useful now since they've buffed both Phlebotomize and Chaos Thrust. Everytime mercy stroke is mentioned, opinions are... divided. (I have yet to get MRD to 26.)

I still love blood for blood, but like Tenchi says it's situational, especially true for a dragoon. I was afraid to put it up last time we all did Titan HM together, so I didn't. Not that I don't have other damage buffs anyway...

Totally grabbing the patch ASAP, even if servers are still down. That's quite the download.

If everything's going right the defensive cooldowns usually arn't used except for soloing, so there's no reason to not just set IR/Fracture/Bloodbath/Mercy Stroke/Second Wind. I don't see any reason for opinions on Mercy Stroke to be divided because it's off the global cooldown, so you'll get bonus damage if you use it right which is always good. Fracture on the other hand, has caused many a flame war on boards. Personally whenever I play DRG I almost never touch Fracture anymore, when you consider that you'll usually be capping accuracy the amount of damage it does is only a smidgeon higher than your basic combo, and one small screwup makes it not worth it at all. I'd still have it set if you have absolutely nothing else to do (not like there's anything else to equip), but DRG's combos are pretty long so it should be on the bottom of your priorities.

Also, yeah, as Chronix said, MNK was already top melee DPS (and if we're talking single target they were just plain the best DPS). The amount of buffs they got just makes them undisputed #1, the only reason not to fill your party with good MNKs for DPS is because of that inane "your LB fills slower" penalty to any party with more than 1 of the same job. Really dumb way of "balancing" the game by just forcing job variety on everyone.

So I feel bad for plds now, warriors have so much more to do in fights now and so many more options. New war is fun, and the new content is challenging too. Ultima Weapon v2 is amazingly hard but fun, and the new dungeons are all more than simple beat boss to death runs. Copperbell hard is a bitch, but haukke and pharos are cool. Haven't tried Crystal Tower yet, but I've heard that's a massive pain in the ass. Ex Garuda is evil too, and all the new gear you can get is awesome. I'm satisfied for now that's for sure.

Pharos kicks my ass. Copperbell and Haukke less so, but they're still quite the challenge. Can't wait to try Crystal Tower tonight. Did a little PvP, but only like 3 rounds where we all got our butts kicked by sleep. I really want to do more though. I love how many tomes I get from duty roulette. :D

Dragoon buffs are great. Jump/SSD/DFD are way faster now, I do more damage and the dots are a little more worth it. Can't wait to see what the DRG gear from crystal tower looks like, apparently it's onion knight-y.

Only thing I've been dragging on is beast man quests. I unlocked both sylph and amaljaa, but haven't completed any of their quests yet.

Imo crystal tower is terrible. Basically it falls into the same trap as a lot of content in this game. The assumption you have a balanced party with ranged and melee dps. The second boss was near impossible because my alliance was too short on ranged dps...

Logged

“Normal is not something to aspire to, it's something to get away from.”

I am kinda disappointed with the ultima fight. It was the one I was looking forward to the most, but its not much harder then normal. My perspective would definitely change if I was a tank, but dps wise it was easy. Beating that fight is mainly how good your tanks are handling stacks and dealing with the orbs. Also screw Pharos 1st and last boss, lol. Crystal tower is a mixed bag, with a good raid its very fun.It only takes a few bads /trolls to ruin the experience, and make the dungeon a lot harder then it needs to be. Also since very few people use join in progress, quitters make finishing the instance VERY ANNOYING especially if its a heal or tank(King Behemoth I am a looking at joo).

Roulette is nice, 90 myths in one dungeon run makes it a lot less painful to fill up.

Dungeon EXP change is also nice.

Daily quests are uncreative and crappy. I'm sure the main quests for them are nice but you need to grind your dailies every day for weeks to see them.

Haven't really gotten into the Primal fights much but I always like them so I'll probably like these too.

New Haukke and Copperbell are alright, Copperbell was a pain in the ass the first time through, and most pickups can't fight the first boss if their lives depended on it. I have unlocked Pharos but haven't done it yet.

Haven't unlocked CT yet, might touch it later but only when I'm in a patient mood because I can't even random 3 people without running into at least 1 awful player.

Story quests have got to be a joke, they make you run a level 30 dungeon plus 2 level 15 guildheists or whatever in a level 50 quest? How lazy could you get? I don't even get why those are there.

The loot from CT much better then i was expecting for ilv 80 gear only 3 main and secondary stats off from myth or allagan. Most of it is ugly as hell though. I got the caster pants so I'm done for the week unless FC needs a body spot. Bard set looks quite nice, definitely will be the next thing i get next after castor body, if i don't get coil body 1st.

Eh, I dunno, I like most of it except that white and red set (guessing that's Bard so lucky me). I think the problem is that having an entire set is unlikely (and at this point, impossible) so it probably won't go with whatever else you're wearing.

I was going to run CT a couple nights ago with Embryon but DF was taking ages so I dropped and did duty roulette. Naturally that would be the time when dragoon boots would drop and there's no DRG in his party. lol

Ran CT last night (collab with both our FCs) and it was a lot of fun. This dude from another alliance tried so hard and failed to explain the fights and then he was like 'idk I'm just a healer' haha. Didn't get anything but whatever, we'll likely run it again before the loot and myth reset.